Friday, December 09, 2016

Trump and Space Weapons

It is highly likely that the Trump administration will move to have the U.S. deploy weapons in space. If this happens, it will be profoundly destabilizing, setting off an arms race and, also likely, leading to war in space.

For decades there’s been interest by U.S. administrations—the Reagan administration with its “Star Wars” plan a leading example—in placing weapons in space. But that has alternated with some administrations more-or-less opposed, the Obama administration an example.

Still, no matter the administration, since work at the United Nations began in 1985 on a treaty seeking, as its title declares, the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space, the U.S. has not supported it. Canada, Russia and China have been leaders in urging passage of this PAROS treaty, and there has been virtually universal backing from nations around the world. But by balking, U.S. administration after administration has prevented its passage.

With the Trump administration, more than non-support of the PAROS treaty is probable. A drive by the U.S. to weaponize space appears in the offing.

The weaponization of space has long been sought by the U.S. military. The U.S. Air Force Space Command and U.S. Space Command (now merged into the U.S. Strategic Command) have repeatedly described space as the “ultimate high ground.” There has been continued development of space weapons.

Atomic physicist Edward Teller, the main figure in developing the hydrogen bomb and instrumental in founding Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, pitched to Ronald Reagan, when he was governor of California visiting the lab, a plan of orbiting hydrogen bombs which became the initial basis for Reagan’s “Star Wars.” The bombs were to energize X-ray lasers. “As the bomb at the core of an X-ray battle station exploded, multiple beams would flash out to strike multiple targets before the entire station consumed itself in in a ball of nuclear fire,” explained New York Times journalist William Broad in his book Star Warriors.

Teller’s orbiting H-bomb scheme, code-named Excalibur, was finally dropped, in part, according to Broad, because another Reagan advisor, Army Lt. General Daniel O. Graham, felt the U.S. “public would never accept the placement of nuclear weapons in space.”

So there was a shift on “Star Wars to battle platforms having nuclear reactors or “super” plutonium-fueled radioisotope thermoelectric generators on board that would provide the power for hypervelocity guns, particle beams and also laser weapons.

What kind of space weaponry might scientists and the military sell Trump on?

“Under Trump, GOP to Give Space Weapons Close Look,” was the headline of an article last month in Roll Call, a reliable 61-year-old Washington-based media outlet. The article said “Trump’s thinking on missile defense and military space programs have gotten next to no attention, as compared to the president-elect’s other defense proposals….But experts expect such programs to account for a significant share of what is likely to be a defense budget boost, potentially amounting to $500 billion or more in the coming decade.”

Intense support for the Republican president’s plans is anticipated from the GOP-dominated Congress. Roll Call noted that Representative Trent Franks, a member of the House Armed Services Committee and an Arizona Republican, “said the GOP’s newly strengthened hand in Washington means a big payday is coming for programs aimed at developing weapons that can be deployed in space.”

It quoted Franks as saying: “It was a Democrat mindset that caused us to step back from space-based defense assets to ostensibly not ‘weaponize space,’ while our enemies proceeded to do just that, and now, we find ourselves in a grave deficit.”

'Mad Dog' Mattis exudes this American sense of arrogance and entitlement. His words to the Iraqi people repeatedly indicate this notion that 'we came, we conquered'. Imagining him in the role of Secretary of War, armed with the biggest military in human history, is frightening. Will he walk into a room full of Russian or Chinese leaders and figure he can order them to do this or that and threaten to 'brawl' if they do not comply?

It's mind blowing to consider.

The US is like a cowboy gambler with a black hat on a Mississippi riverboat playing cards. The cowboy looks around and sees himself surrounded by those he has exploited for years. He thinks his only way out is to start shooting – the law of the west. That, I think, is essentially still the foreign and military policy of the US. Its part arrogance and part fear that the world has woken up at last and is rejecting the cowboy mentality of ‘full spectrum dominance’.

Growing global poverty and the reality of climate change though are banging on Washington’s front door. The corporations are trying to make money from climate change – their love for the dollar bill is so great that they cannot see beyond their lust for power and greed. I call them pirates.

The pirates have buried a treasure chest in the US – it is our national treasury created by the taxes from the people’s hard work. About 55% of every federal tax dollar under the discretion of Congress goes to the Pentagon. America has become a war culture. Our economy is addicted to military production. People are increasingly being indoctrinated to believe the ‘Muslims-Russians-Chinese’ are coming to attack us so we must spend even more on weapons for war and we must have the very best space technology system in place to 'protect' ourselves. We are a paranoid nation – massive guilt and fear comes from our long legacy of corruption and genocide.

The bottom line is that much of America has lost its soul. By becoming a killer nation we've lost touch with the sacred around us - our Mother Earth and all the life that inhabits this wondrous planet. Nothing much changes until we heal this collective broken spirit.

Native people are calling for more prayer as one way to reconnect with the goodness of the sacred. We also need to speak the truth more than ever as the dark forces try to smother the light.

We cannot cower and shirk in fear during these coming days. All life - the plants, the animals, the land, water, air, human life - depend on us standing tall in our own communities and speaking the truth.

Wednesday, December 07, 2016

What Are We Doing to the Minds of Our Youth?

This video reveals the reality of America today.

Under corporate globalization of the world economy the Pentagon has been saying that every country will have a different role. In America we will not make shoes, clothes, cars, TV's or cell phones anymore. We will make war on behalf of corporate interests around the world. The Pentagon calls it 'Security Export'.

The airshows, violent movies, military recruitment in our schools, and many other cultural avenues are all aimed at militarizing our culture. The kids are being taught that violence is cool and normal. The word 'freedom' comes to mean that the US, the 'exceptional' nation, is free to rape, kill and pillage around the world.

The mega-resource extraction corporations are out to take control of the world's remaining oil, natural gas, water and precious minerals. In order to accomplish this greedy goal these corporations must have an ongoing supply of boots on the ground to do the fighting and killing on behalf of their interests.

Cutbacks in public education funding and loss of jobs across America ensure that the future generations have no real future. But they've been repeatedly told that they can join the military, make good money, and have 'fun' while they 'see the world'. The fact that suicides among returned war veterans is now at epidemic rates is not shared at these air shows.

It was announced just last week that the Navy's Blue Angels will come back to Brunswick, Maine next August 26-27 to do another air show. We'll be out there protesting as we have in the past.

Thanks to Michael Hanes for making this video about our very sick culture. He asks this important question, "What are we doing to the minds of our youth?"

Huntsville: Global Network 25th Annual Space Conference

Join us for the 25th anniversary of the Global Network at this important conference and protest in the community known as the ‘Pentagon of the South’.

Huntsville is the home of the Redstone Arsenal and the Space Command’s directorate for ‘missile defense’. Huntsville is the manufacturing site for the PAC-3, SM-3 missile defense (MD) systems while the controversial THAAD is built in another part of Alabama. Redstone Arsenal was the place where after WWII Nazi rocket scientists were brought by the U.S., using their scientific and technological expertise to help create the US space and weapons programs. The GN had a similar meeting in Huntsville in 2001.The US is currently encircling Russia and China with MD systems based on Navy Aegis warships (SM-3 interceptor missiles) and with ground-based launchers (PAC-3 and THAAD). These systems are the ‘shield’ that would be used to pick-off Russian or Chinese retaliatory strikes after a Pentagon first-strike attack. MD systems were previously banned by the US-Russian Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty because they are destabilizing and give one side an advantage. George W. Bush pulled the US out of the ABM Treaty in 2001 and since that time the US MD program has been on steroids.

This conference, to be held in the heartland of the conservative south, will be a great opportunity for peace groups everywhere to learn more about the role of US MD systems which could be key triggers to start WW III. Help the growing global movement against MD and space weapons build greater opposition to these destabilizing programs.

We invite peace groups worldwide to become co-sponsors of this timely conference and to send representatives to join the protest at Redstone Arsenal on April 7 and the conference on April 8-9. Organizations interested in being listed as event co-sponsors are asked to pay $100 - $500 (whatever you can best afford).

More information about complete conference agenda will be available soon. Send inquires to the GN at globalnet@mindspring.com or (207) 443-9502.